Starter home: Main St, Millstreet, Co Cork, €60,000
All the news ever fit to print, decade after decade, passed over the counter at Cronin’s Paper Shop, on Millstreet’s Main Street.
Owner Mary Cronin herself passed away last year aged 97, and she and her shop, her gentle manner and her ways and words are still fondly recalled, and much missed in the mid-Cork town: a recording of tributes paid to her at her Mass have been stored in the audio/video archives of Millstreet Museum.
The local lady, and her assistant Pat Joe Kelleher (who died this year) closed The Paper Shop and retired in 2004, while her counter held and reserved copies of everything from world news (she was born in 1917, the year of the Russian Revolution) to local Duhallow bulletins.
Little wonder she won the Cork Examiner newsagent of the Year Award in 1993, the year the Eurovision Song Contest was held on her doorstep.
Now, that step is looking for someone to open the doors again, to appreciate the simple finery of a proper, old-fashioned and ergonomic workspace and counter .
Cronin’s Paper Shop (it also sold groceries, flour, snuff and stuff) is being sold by local estate agent Catherine Pomeroy (pictured above, in Mary Cronin’s stead) who guides at a suitably-sounding old-fashioned €60,000.
It has a front shop 19’ by 14’ with original shop fittings, old weighing scales, wood counter, tile and wood floor, wood ceiling, and behind is a sitting room with fireplace, kitchen, back hall, and garden access, plus ground floor en suite bedroom.
Overhead is a dining room overlooking the street, graced by a piano, and two further bedrooms.
Slice of history
